♪ ~ [Fuse Man Stage - Arranged ~ Yoshiya Terayama ~ MEGAMAN 11 Original Soundtrack]

“The masses grow restless, old friend.”

“Of course, they do Pir’oth. They know that their rightful ruler is soon to fully wake.”

Golden glowing geometric lines.
Carved, ancient, stone blocks.
A whole structure made of a countless number, shifting systematically.
A labyrinth without exit.

In the Ring Gate Beacon, two individuals stood. If either could be considered individuals or present was another matter.

The first who spoke, did so with a hollow echoing voice that came from somewhere near their body rather than from it. A clockwork skeleton with a gleaming white suit of armor built directly onto it. It was garbed in robes of purple hue that were themselves adorned with massive cogwheel like shackles at the wrist, ankles, and neck. Rising out of that cogwheel collar around the neck of a slighter taller than a meter tall sapient echidna autogolem, a mask with three large spines raised up like a crown glared upon the world with blue glowing eyes. Pir’Oth Ix, an unusual clockwork golem, an autogolem armed with a staff headed by a half cogwheel in which a purple crystal rose floated.

Ix’s companion, was but a visage of light. A young human man, slender and garbed all in white. He was beautiful and had the demeanor of a kind and caring friend. His golden, Ring colored hair fell gently to his shoulders and was played with by the collar of his white cape. The voice he spoke with was kind and friendly yet stood in stark contrast to the words he spoke. Chilling in their implications.

“I have slept too long, old friend,” the boyish young man laughed. “They have all forgotten me, my own powers used against me, even when I meant to stop those fools who would make the world forget. It’s troubling, but at least it will be entertaining. Especially should the Dirt Dweller and my chosen Medium try to stop me.”

“You speak of Sonic the Hedgehog, then Benedict?” Ix queried, glaring at the visage with his intense blue glowing eyes. “I warned you once that it would be wisest to be rid of him while we had the chance.”

“Pir’Oth, my dear old friend,” the visage of Benedict Yoluku laughed. “A century at most. That is all the Dirt Dweller can delay my waking. How many millennia did we sleep before he and my Medium accidently began the process of my waking? There will be no harm in my being entertained. The damage you do to my Ring Gate Beacon however… You really should make use of my Medium to speak with me.”

Yoluku laughed, a gentle and pleasing sound, yet Ix was unamused.

The damage done to the Ring Gate Beacon was not lost on Ix. The base of his staff was forced into the ground, and all around him the blocks that made up the impossible structure burst into clouds of Rings. In turn, the Rings turned into motes of twinkling golden light that were absorbed by the single Ring from which Yoluku’s visage was emitted.

“To speak with you and discuss our plans to restore the Empire of the Ring, and you to your rightful place atop its throne is more than reason to discard a meager beacon. From what I have learned, there are foreigners who can reconstruct them as is. We can make use of them and discard them as needed.”

“So boring, Pir’oth,” Yoluku sighed. A playful smile came to his features however, and another pleasing laugh escaped from behind his lips. “But you know I have already begun to take action. The Dirt Dweller is so flustered, desperately trying to stop me. It is delightful. I can’t help but be amused.

“When first we clashed, I thought he might disappoint me, Pir’oth,” Yoluku continued, spreading his arms out wide. “But instead, he surprised me. Astounded and amazed me. Watching him struggle has been the greatest delight. I want him to entertain me until he draws his last breath. What a delight it will be.”

~|~

♪ ~ [Second Advent ~ Tsutomu Narita ~ Granblue Fantasy Original Soundtrack: Choas]

Heavy rain and storm clouds.
Geometric blocks crumbling and collapsing.
Lines of green light turning gold before darkness.
Dust and instability.
A ruin collapsing into rubble.

“This has to be Ix’s doing.”

Skipping along the shifting blocks that soon collapsed, running as fast as his signature red shoed feet would take him, the world-famous blue hedgehog dipped above and below speeds equaling and surpassing that of sound itself.

Sonic the Hedgehog.

He found himself in yet another new adventure, but the challenge from this one was different from those he had enjoyed before. It was not that the meter tall sapient hedgehog could not find enjoyment in this one, but there was an urgency he had that made any enjoyment difficult to hold onto.

In his arms, Sonic held a blanket wrapped hedgehog girl. She was fast asleep, only her nose escaping from the blankets wrapped around her. Keeping her head and neck supported while he ran along the collapsing Ring Gate Beacon kept him wary and holding back. As a result, on more than one occasion he nearly fell into the abyss that was opening beneath him.

His style of running was never as clean as people thought it was at a glance. He was an acrobatic scrambler and having to hold tight to an unconscious girl whose sole protection was him was trying. That the Ring Gate Beacon was collapsing only made matters more difficult.

Eventually, Sonic could not stay ahead of the ruin as it gave way. Fortunately, the Zone he ran through attempting to reach the heart of the beacon was covered in old unused train rails and an elevated one caught him. With a hop and slight twist, he grinded along the rail and straight towards his destination.

“Ix!”

A thunderbolt punctuated Sonic’s shout as he ran up and saw the autogolem echidna standing atop a dais of blocks covered in the golden geometric runes. In response to Sonic’s voice, Ix turned around and looked down contemptuously at the blue hedgehog. Seeing the bundle Sonic held protectively, his blue eyes grew more intense in their glow.

“Sonic the Hedgehog. Have you perhaps come to at last hand over what is rightfully the property of Emperor Yoluku?”

“You wish,” Sonic sneered in defiance of the autogolem. “Old Eggs Benedict is off his rocker and just waiting for someone to straighten him out. He doesn’t own anyone, especially her.”

“Amusing,” Ix laughed, and twirled his staff. From the motion, motes of golden light twinkled into being and flashed into the form of a Ring large enough for him to step through. Looking through it as it turned on its axis at Sonic, his emotions were lost to his artificial nature. His voice however maintained a contemptuous tone. “You are unwise to challenge a god, Ring Mage.”

“I’m not a mage,” Sonic corrected Ix and took a step forward. He did not continue as Ix slammed his staff into the ground.

The stone blocks cracked and splintered, Rings bursting forth and falling back to the blocks. Where they touched, they disappeared in twinkling motes of light and golems of stone, shaped like fisherman anchors pulled themselves from the structure, a simple green gem embedded in the top of the shaft between where the arms of the anchor shape met.

“You are one who uses the power of the Rings, Sonic the Hedgehog. And you are one who would challenge my old friend to what is rightfully his. You are assuredly a Ring Mage. One who can die here for all I am concerned. But, please, leave the Medium behind.”

“Not happening,” Sonic challenged Ix.

“Then may you entertain Benedict until you draw your last. He has prepared a grand game for you. One I find foolish. But it is Benedict’s way, and you are as he says, nothing but a speck of the dirt you dwell in compared to his divine splendor.”

Awaiting no counter from Sonic, Ix stepped through the giant spinning Ring and vanished along with it. Left with no hope of following him, the Beacon almost completely dead, Sonic could only face down the golems that challenged him. But with the hedgehog girl asleep in his arms, defenseless and desired, he instead chose to flee. There was no point to such a battle, and soon he looked back at the rain-washed ruins from a nearby grassy plain.

“What a waste,” Sonic remarked as he looked out from where he perched atop the antenna of a giant satellite dish half buried in the ground. “Well, at least I kept you safe, I guess.”

Adjusting the bundled-up hedgehog girl in his arms, Sonic smirked in celebration of at least one small victory. “It’d be nice if you’d wake up though. Keeping you running on Rings alone and having to keep your rascally self out of trouble is really slowing us down.

“Heh,” Sonic laughed not really meaning anything by his words. “Come on. This beacon is useless now so I might as well get you out of the rain. Let’s go.”

His mind made up, Sonic leapt from the satellite dish and darted off into the heart of the Zone.      

Sonic & Rosy got through RAIL RUIN ZONE – ACT 1
Washed Away - Cleared